Larry Elliott's fascinating account of the 1948 London Olympics caught the frugal, make-do-and-mend spirit of those first postwar games perfectly (The real austerity Olympics – and it even made a profit for broke Britain, 31 March). One thing largely forgotten is how proud the great Manchester United manager Matt Busby was of taking the Great Britain team to the soccer semi-finals, weeks after winning the FA Cup with United. He devoted a whole chapter of his 1957 autobiography, Matt Busby: My Story, to the subject, shortly after United had won the league for the third time in six years.

For the Olympics Busby had been put in charge of a squad of 26 amateurs, only one of whom he'd seen before, and with the help of several pros from United set about coaching them at Old Trafford, where the stadium still lay in ruins from the Blitz. It was a miracle when he got the team to the semis, against largely "shamateur" teams of near-professionals. "As manager of the British team on that occasion I did a job of work which I shall always regard as one of my best," he wrote. "Steering Manchester United to the championship of the Football League First Division was child's play beside the problems of sorting out a winning team from 26 spare-time footballers from four different countries ... For myself, the 1948 Olympic Games will forever remain a proud memory, not only for the respectable results obtained, but also because I got a great kick out of working with such a grand team of amateur footballers."

Following defeat in the semi-final, the team had one more match, a third-place play-off for a bronze medal. Busby assembled the whole squad and put forward the proposal that those players who had not played in earlier rounds should get a game now. The squad agreed unanimously, testament to the selfless team spirit that Busby, something of a socialist, had helped engender within the team, and typical, perhaps, of the best of those postwar austerity days when everyone really was "all in it together".Giles OakleyLondon